Its about the heart. Put your money away.

A couple of days ago I traveled for the second time on Southwest Airlines.
It took the second time to fully understand and appreciate the experience. I think it wasn’t clear to me the first time because I was accustomed to a certain way of flying. I had accepted the flying paradigm handed to me over the years.

On the second trip, I read the airline magazine and came across a farewell article from the airline’s president Colleen Barrett. In the article she explained Southwest’s customer philosophy and how their success was based on a simple premise, an expectation and requirement of a display of “:Golden Rule Behavior” among and from Southwest Employees -

“Do onto others as you would have others do onto you”.

Once I read the article something seemed to click and I began to see things I had not noticed until then. Flight attendants were fun, helpful, nice, friendly. More importantly, passengers were the same. When the captain announced a weather delay, no one made the usual sarcastic comments or eye-rolling sighs. In stead there were the inevitable jokes about Chicago and its weather. The next thing I noticed was that the energy on the flights was less hurried, intense and more . . .I’ll say it, “loving”.

Southwest is not a high priced airline that can afford great customer service, in fact, they are the opposite, a low cost airline (one of the few making money). So, how does that work?

Ms. Barrett, understands it, and I suspect the entire culture does as well. Customer satisfaction comes from a state of mind. It comes from a caring spirit that needs no funding, no budget nor gadgets. Loyalty comes from the emotions we are able to create in our customers when they see that they are cared for, as people.

Most executives with whom I speak regarding Customer Satisfaction mention they would like to work on customer centricity but believe they can’t afford it. We must convince them all to put away their money and put their hearts out where the customer can see them.

Higher quality of life and higher business benefits are just around the corner, ask Ms. Barrett, or fly Southwest at least twice.

RudyVidal
Committed to XCS !